Exclusive: Director Jay Anania on Working with Winona Ryder and James Franco in 'The Letter'

It warms many a nostalgic heart that Winona Ryder has triumphantly returned, following her highly publicized "comeback" performance in Darren Aronofsky's lauded Black Swan and the recent premiere of Frankenweenie, which found her at last reuniting with Tim Burton. But it's Ryder's arresting performance in the art house-friendly indie thriller, The Letter, that deserves the headlines. Written and directed by filmmaker and NYU professor Jay Anania, The Letter centers around Martine (Ryder), a playwright in the midst of rehearsals for her forthcoming piece. She casts Tyrone (James Franco), an enigma of a character who intrigues Martine with his menacing glares and off-kilter ways. As the film progresses, it's clear that something strange is happening to the unraveling Martine; she believes that someone is following her (a poster for the film reads, "She thought she saw a devil"), that she's being poisoned, and that her boyfriend (who is also an actor in her play) is having an affair with his attractive cast member. Or are these just nightmares and hallucinations?

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ELLE.com caught up with Anania about the "entirely subjective" twisted film, the "amazingly open" and "incredibly warm" Ryder, as well as how he grades Franco as his former student.

ELLE: How did you come up with the concept behind the film?

Jay Anania: It was in the late '80s, and I was sitting in a park in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I eavesdropped on two people having a very menacing, strange conversation. Only later did I realize that they were rehearsing a scene. The discrepancy of what I first thought what was going on was pretty interesting and fertile ground for a story. I wrote it in the '90s, but just before we were going into production with a German producer, the German taxlaws changed and projects all around the world were canceled in one day. Mine was one of them. I was disheartened by it. I put it aside, but it was always in the back of my head. I made a film with Franco a couple of years ago, and he said "Let's make another one soon-ish." And I said "Hmm…What about this one?" So we did it.

ELLE: What made you cast Ryder as the leading lady?

JA: Winona's name was brought up, and it really intrigued me. I remember getting a message on my phone: "Hi Jay, it's Winona. I just want to thank you for bringing me into this. I really love the script." I called her back immediately and we must have talked for more than an hour. I got off the phone and I said to everybody, "This is the finest human being. I'm absolutely in love this woman." She's really smart, incredibly warm, and really enthusiastic. It was a very low budget film—way lower than anything she has done, and it didn't deter her. You would never know on the set that she was the star that she is. Once I started working with her, I could see the film changing before my eyes. All that seemed to matter was what's inside Winona's character's mind.

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ELLE: How have the tabloid headlines affected Ryder?

JA: She seems really unaffected because she knows it's not true. She's a wonderfully self-sufficient and self-possessed person. After the first day of shooting, she had to go to some sort of function. Somebody said "How are you doing Winona?" and she said something like "Oh, I've been shooting all day so I've been sort of crazed." One of the tabloids put something along the lines of "Crazed Winona," and she saw that and brought it in the next morning. She just laughed and laughed. She thought it was hilarious. She didn't mind at all.

ELLE: Can you elaborate on your history with James? How was he as your former student?

JA: I taught James "Directing" at NYU the very first semester he was here. The first thing all NYU grad students do is they make a four minute black-and-white film. He came in and said his inspiration was the filmmaker Kenneth Anger. He's an experimental filmmaker from the '50s, '60s, and a little bit in the '70s. It happens that he'd also been one of my main inspirations, so we really clicked. He was a great student. It's well known that James does a million things at a time. What he did as an NYU grad student was exceptional work, and he did it while he continued to do his acting and other film projects and art projects outside of school. The energy he has is astonishing. He has a lot he wants to do in his life, and he's determined to do it. I think of James and Winona as bohemians who just incidentally happen to be movie stars.

The Letter is now available on iTunes, Amazon, Netflix. Watch the trailer here, and check out these behind-the-scenes phtoos.